Madisons

Education

King George I grants to Ambrose Madison and Thomas Chew a patent to 4,675 acres in what will become Orange County.

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Ambrose and family move to the patent lands, known generally as "Mount Pleasant.
The Mount Pleasant house was near the existing Madison Family Cemetery, and archaeologists have now located the site.
Ambrose Madison dies on August 27.

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James Madison, Jr., is born at Port Conway, the first of 12 children, seven of whom would survive to adulthood. (Old-style birth date is 03/05/1750.) Siblings will be Francis, Ambrose, Nelly Madison Hite, Sarah Catlett Madison Macon, William, and Frances Taylor Madison Rose.

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Madison begins boarding school kept by Donald Robertson, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, in neighboring King and Queen County.

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Madison remembers helping move some of the smaller items from the old house to the new house.

1767
Madison begins to be tutored at home by the Reverend Thomas Martin, himself an alumnus of the College of New Jersey at Princeton.

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Madison enters the College of New Jersey at Princeton.

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Madison serves as a colonel in the Orange militia and as a member of the local Committee of Safety. (His father is the leader of both groups.) He never serves in the field because of weak health.

1776
Madison is elected a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention and the General Assembly.

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Madison travels to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress.

1783
Madison plays major role in fashioning compromise measures designed to provide Congress with adequate revenue, and to amend the revenue clauses of the Articles of Confederation.

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Madison serves in the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond before and after a trip to New York with the Marquis de Lafayette.

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Back in the Virginia House of Delegates, Madison secures passage of revised version of the statute of religious freedom drafted by Jefferson in 1777.

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One of the first delegates to arrive at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Madison promotes what will become known as the "Virginia Plan.
He serves as the chief architect of a proposed constitution that would provide for a strong central government.
The Convention adopts a new constitution on September 17, subject to its being ratified by a minimum of nine states.
Madison then travels to New York where he begins writing various numbers of the Federalist essays, known as The Federalist Papers, in support of that constitution.

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In June, as a delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention, Madison thwarts the efforts of Patrick Henry and others to have that body reject the proposed National Constitution.

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U.S. Congressional Delegate Madison engineers the adoption of the first amendments to the new Constitution.
They are known collectively as the "Bill of Rights.
(Madison proposed 17 amendments on 09/25/1789.

Madison serves as secretary of state in President Jefferson's administration.

1809-1812
Madison's second renovation and addition project at Montpelier adds the flanking wings with kitchens below and a back colonnade; also a neoclassical temple over an ice house is constructed to the north of the house.

1809-1817
Madison serves as fourth president of the United States.
During the War of 1812, the White House is burned.

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Madison succeeds his recently departed friend Jefferson as the rector of the University of Virginia.

John's son, named also John, was father of Ambrose Madison, who married, 24 August, 1721, Frances, daughter of James Taylor, of Orange county, Virginia Frances had four brothers, one of whom, Zachary, was grandfather of Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States.

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The eldest child of Ambrose and Frances was James Madison, born 27 March, 1723, who married, 15 September, 1749, Nelly Conway, of Port Conway.

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Along with these admirable qualities, his lofty integrity and his warm interest in public affairs were well known to the people of Orange, so that when, in the autumn of 1774, it was thought necessary to appoint a committee of safety, Madison was its youngest member.

Early in 1776 he was chosen a delegate to the State convention, which met at Williamsburg in May.The first business of the convention was to instruct the Virginia delegation in the Continental Congress with regard to an immediate declaration of independence.Next came the work of making a constitution for the state, and Madison was one of the special committee appointed to deal with this problem.Here one of his first acts was highly characteristic.Religious liberty was a matter that strongly enlisted his feelings.When it was proposed that, under the new constitution, "all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience,"

Madison pointed out that this provision did not go to the root of the matter.The free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, is something which every man may demand as a right, not something for which he must ask as a privilege.To grant to the state the power of tolerating is implicitly to grant it to the power of prohibiting, whereas Madison would deny to it any jurisdiction whatever in the matter of religion.The clause in the bill of rights, as finally adopted at his suggestion, accordingly declares that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."The incident illustrates not only Madison's liberality of spirit, but also his precision and forethought in so drawing up an instrument as to make it mean all that it was intended to mean.

In his later career these qualities were especially brilliant and useful.Madison was elected a member of the first legislature under the new state constitution, but he failed of re-election because he refused to solicit votes or to furnish whiskey for thirsty voters.The new legislature then elected him a member of the governor's council, and in 1780 he was sent as delegate to the Continental congress.The high consideration in which he was held showed itself in the number of important committees to which he was appointed.

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The offer of a permanent and invaluable right in exchange for a temporary and questionable advantage seemed to Mr. Madison very unwise; but as it was then generally held that in such matters representatives must be bound by the wishes of their constituents, he yielded, though under protest.

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The foresight and sound judgment shown by Mr. Madison in this discussion added much to his reputation.

His next prominent action related to the impost law proposed in 1783.This was, in some respects, the most important question of the day.The chief source of the weakness of the United States during the Revolutionary war had been the impossibility of raising money by means of Federal taxation.As long as money could be raised only through requisitions upon the state governments, and the different states could not be brought to agree upon any method of enforcing the requisitions, the state governments were sure to prove delinquent.Finding it impossible to obtain money for carrying on the war, congress had resorted to the issue of large quantities of inconvertible paper, with the natural results.There had been a rapid inflation of values, followed by sudden bankruptcy and the prostration of national credit.

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The question was settled by a compromise that was proposed by Mr. Madison; according to this arrangement the slaves were rated as population, but in such wise that five of them were counted as three persons.

In 1784 Mr. Madison was again elected to the Virginia legislature, an office then scarcely inferior in dignity, and superior in influence, to that of delegate to the Continental congress.His efforts were steadfastly devoted to the preparation and advocacy of measures that were calculated to increase the strength of the Federal government.He supported the proposed amendment to the articles of confederation, giving to congress control over the foreign trade of the states: and, pending the adoption of such a measure, he secured in that body the passage of a port bill restricting the entry of foreign ships to certain specified ports.The purpose of this was to facilitate the collection of revenue, but it was partially defeated in its operation by successive amendments increasing the number of ports.While the weakness of the general government and the need for strengthening it were daily growing more apparent, the question of religious liberty was the subject of earnest discussion in the Virginia legislature.An attempt was made to lay a tax upon all the people of that state "for the support of teachers of the Christian religion."At first Madison was almost the only one to see clearly the serious danger lurking in such a tax; that it would be likely to erect a state church and curtail men's freedom of belief and worship.Mr. Madison's position here well illustrated the remark that intelligent persistence is capable of making one person a majority.His energetic opposition resulted at first in postponing the measure.Then he wrote a "Memorial and Remonstrance," setting forth its dangerous character with wonderful clearness and cogency.He sent this paper all over the state for signatures, and in the course of a twelve month had so educated the people that, in the election of 1785, the question of religious freedom was made a test question, and in the ensuing session the dangerous bill was defeated, and in place thereof it was enacted "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief ; but that all men shall be free to profess and, by argument, maintain their opinions m matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

...

Madison's "Religious Freedom Act."was translated into French and Italian, and was widely read and commented upon in Europe.In our own history it set a most valuable precedent for other states to follow.

The attitude of Mr. Madison with regard to paper money was also very important.The several states had then the power of issuing promissory notes and making them a legal tender, and many of them shamefully abused this power.The year 1786 witnessed perhaps the most virulent craze for paper money that has ever attacked the American people.In Virginia the masterly reasoning and the resolute attitude of a few great political leaders saved the state from yielding to the delusion, and among these leaders Mr. Madison was foremost.

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This resolution Mr. Madison left to be offered to the assembly by some one less conspicuously identified with federalist opinions than himself; and it was accordingly presented by Mr. Tyler, father of the future president of that name.

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Mr. Madison was one of the commissioners at Annapolis, and was very soon appointed a delegate to the new convention, along with Washington, Randolph, Mason, and others.

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In February, 1787, just as Mr. Madison, who had been chosen a delegate to congress, arrived in New York, the legislature of that state refused its assent to the amendment, which was thus defeated.Thus, only three months before the time designated for the meeting of the Philadelphia convention, congress was decisively informed that it would not be allowed to take any effectual measures for raising a revenue.This accumulation of difficulties made congress more ready to listen to the arguments of Mr. Madison, and presently congress itself proposed a convention at Philadelphia identical with the one recommended by the Annapolis commissioners, and thus in its own way sanctioned their action.

The assembling of the convention at Philadelphia was an event to which Mr. Madison, by persistent energy and skill, had contributed more than any other man in the country, with the possible exception of Alexander Hamilton.For the noble political structure reared by the convention, it was Madison that furnished the basis.Before the convention met he laid before his colleagues of the Virginia delegation the outlines of the scheme that was presented to the convention as the "Virginia plan."Of the delegates, Edmund Randolph was then governor of Virginia, and it was he that presented the plan, and made the opening speech in defense of it, but its chief author was Madison.This "Virginia plan" struck directly at the root of the evils from which our Federal gove

Ambrose Madison (ca. 1696 - 1732) was a member of the first of three generations of Madisons to reside on the Montpelier property.

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His grandson Ambrose was a well-established, well-connected member of the gentry class.
He held several significant public offices, married well, and owned thousands of acres in both the Tidewater and Piedmont.

In 1721, Ambrose Madison, the eldest child of John (1660-1725) and Isabella Minor Maddison (d. 1738), married Frances Taylor (1700-1761), daughter of James and Martha Thompson Taylor.

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In 1723, Ambrose Madison along with his brother-in-law Thomas Chew, patented 4,675 acres in the newly opened Piedmont of Virginia.

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Madison and Chew divided the tract, located along the Southwest Mountains, with Madison retaining 2,850 acres of land northwest of the ridge.

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Per the requirements of the patent, Madison had three years during which to make certain improvements to the land including erecting a house and clearing land.
While Madison sent slaves to clear his newly acquired parcel of land in 1723, it was not until 1732 that Ambrose moved his family to the Montpelier estate, then called Mount Pleasant.

Poison by Slaves

Soon after taking up permanent residence at Mount Pleasant, Ambrose became ill due to an apparent poisoning by slaves.
He made out his will in July 1732 and died on August 27, 1732.
Three slaves - Pompey, Dido, and Turk - were convicted of Ambrose's death.

John's son, named also John, was father of Ambrose Madison, who married, 24 August, 1721, Frances, daughter of James Taylor, of Orange county, Virginia Frances had four brothers, one of whom, Zachary, was grandfather of Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States.

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The eldest child of Ambrose and Frances was James Madison, born 27 March, 1723, who married, 15 September, 1749, Nelly Conway, of Port Conway.

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Along with these admirable qualities, his lofty integrity and his warm interest in public affairs were well known to the people of Orange, so that when, in the autumn of 1774, it was thought necessary to appoint a committee of safety, Madison was its youngest member.

Early in 1776 he was chosen a delegate to the State convention, which met at Williamsburg in May.The first business of the convention was to instruct the Virginia delegation in the Continental Congress with regard to an immediate declaration of independence.Next came the work of making a constitution for the state, and Madison was one of the special committee appointed to deal with this problem.Here one of his first acts was highly characteristic.Religious liberty was a matter that strongly enlisted his feelings.When it was proposed that, under the new constitution, "all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience,"

Madison pointed out that this provision did not go to the root of the matter.The free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, is something which every man may demand as a right, not something for which he must ask as a privilege.To grant to the state the power of tolerating is implicitly to grant it to the power of prohibiting, whereas Madison would deny to it any jurisdiction whatever in the matter of religion.The clause in the bill of rights, as finally adopted at his suggestion, accordingly declares that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."The incident illustrates not only Madison's liberality of spirit, but also his precision and forethought in so drawing up an instrument as to make it mean all that it was intended to mean.

In his later career these qualities were especially brilliant and useful.Madison was elected a member of the first legislature under the new state constitution, but he failed of re-election because he refused to solicit votes or to furnish whiskey for thirsty voters.The new legislature then elected him a member of the governor's council, and in 1780 he was sent as delegate to the Continental congress.The high consideration in which he was held showed itself in the number of important committees to which he was appointed.

...

The offer of a permanent and invaluable right in exchange for a temporary and questionable advantage seemed to Mr. Madison very unwise; but as it was then generally held that in such matters representatives must be bound by the wishes of their constituents, he yielded, though under protest.

...

The foresight and sound judgment shown by Mr. Madison in this discussion added much to his reputation.

His next prominent action related to the impost law proposed in 1783.

...

The question was settled by a compromise that was proposed by Mr. Madison; according to this arrangement the slaves were rated as population, but in such wise that five of them were counted as three persons.

In 1784 Mr. Madison was again elected to the Virginia legislature, an office then scarcely inferior in dignity, and superior in influence, to that of delegate to the Continental congress.His efforts were steadfastly devoted to the preparation and advocacy of measures that were calculated to increase the strength of the Federal government.He supported the proposed amendment to the articles of confederation, giving to congress control over the foreign trade of the states: and, pending the adoption of such a measure, he secured in that body the passage of a port bill restricting the entry of foreign ships to certain specified ports.The purpose of this was to facilitate the collection of revenue, but it was partially defeated in its operation by successive amendments increasing the number of ports.While the weakness of the general government and the need for strengthening it were daily growing more apparent, the question of religious liberty was the subject of earnest discussion in the Virginia legislature.An attempt was made to lay a tax upon all the people of that state "for the support of teachers of the Christian religion."At first Madison was almost the only one to see clearly the serious danger lurking in such a tax; that it would be likely to erect a state church and curtail men's freedom of belief and worship.Mr. Madison's position here well illustrated the remark that intelligent persistence is capable of making one person a majority.His energetic opposition resulted at first in postponing the measure.Then he wrote a "Memorial and Remonstrance," setting forth its dangerous character with wonderful clearness and cogency.He sent this paper all over the state for signatures, and in the course of a twelve month had so educated the people that, in the election of 1785, the question of religious freedom was made a test question, and in the ensuing session the dangerous bill was defeated, and in place thereof it was enacted "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief ; but that all men shall be free to profess and, by argument, maintain their opinions m matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

...

Madison's "Religious Freedom Act."was translated into French and Italian, and was widely read and commented upon in Europe.In our own history it set a most valuable precedent for other states to follow.

The attitude of Mr. Madison with regard to paper money was also very important.The several states had then the power of issuing promissory notes and making them a legal tender, and many of them shamefully abused this power.The year 1786 witnessed perhaps the most virulent craze for paper money that has ever attacked the American people.In Virginia the masterly reasoning and the resolute attitude of a few great political leaders saved the state from yielding to the delusion, and among these leaders Mr. Madison was foremost.

...

This resolution Mr. Madison left to be offered to the assembly by some one less conspicuously identified with federalist opinions than himself; and it was accordingly presented by Mr. Tyler, father of the future president of that name.

...

Mr. Madison was one of the commissioners at Annapolis, and was very soon appointed a delegate to the new convention, along with Washington, Randolph, Mason, and others.

...

In February, 1787, just as Mr. Madison, who had been chosen a delegate to congress, arrived in New York, the legislature of that state refused its assent to the amendment, which was thus defeated.Thus, only three months before the time designated for the meeting of the Philadelphia convention, congress was decisively informed that it would not be allowed to take any effectual measures for raising a revenue.This accumulation of difficulties made congress more ready to listen to the arguments of Mr. Madison, and presently congress itself proposed a convention at Philadelphia identical with the one recommended by the Annapolis commissioners, and thus in its own way sanctioned their action.

The assembling of the convention at Philadelphia was an event to which Mr. Madison, by persistent energy and skill, had contributed more than any other man in the country, with the possible exception of Alexander Hamilton.For the noble political structure reared by the convention, it was Madison that furnished the basis.Before the convention met he laid before his colleagues of the Virginia delegation the outlines of the scheme that was presented to the convention as the "Virginia plan."

...

It was one of the longest reaches of constructive statesmanship ever known in the world, and the credit of it is due to Madison more than to any other one man.To him we chiefly owe the luminous conception of the two coexisting and harmonious spheres of government, although the constitution, as actually framed, was the result of skilful compromises by which the Virginia plan was modified and improved in many important points.In its original shape that plan went further toward national consolidation than the constitution as adopted.It contemplated a national legislature to be composed of two houses, but both the upper and the lower house were to represent population instead of states.

Here it encountered fierce opposition from the smaller states, under the lead of New Jersey, until the matter was settled by the famous Connecticut compromise, according to which the upper house was to represent states, while the lower house represented population.Madison's original scheme, moreover, would have allowed the national legislature to set aside at discretion such state laws as it might deem unconstitutional.It

King George I grants to Ambrose Madison and Thomas Chew a patent to 4,675 acres in what will become Orange County.

...

Ambrose and family move to the patent lands, known generally as "Mount Pleasant.
The Mount Pleasant house was near the existing Madison Family Cemetery, and archaeologists have now located the site.
Ambrose Madison dies on August 27.

...

James Madison, Jr., is born at Port Conway, the first of 12 children, seven of whom would survive to adulthood. (Old-style birth date is 03/05/1750.) Siblings will be Francis, Ambrose, Nelly Madison Hite, Sarah Catlett Madison Macon, William, and Frances Taylor Madison Rose.

...

Madison begins boarding school kept by Donald Robertson, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, in neighboring King and Queen County.

...

Madison remembers helping move some of the smaller items from the old house to the new house.

1767
Madison begins to be tutored at home by the Reverend Thomas Martin, himself an alumnus of the College of New Jersey at Princeton.

...

Madison enters the College of New Jersey at Princeton.

...

Madison serves as a colonel in the Orange militia and as a member of the local Committee of Safety. (His father is the leader of both groups.) He never serves in the field because of weak health.

1776
Madison is elected a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention and the General Assembly.

...

Madison travels to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress.

1783
Madison plays major role in fashioning compromise measures designed to provide Congress with adequate revenue, and to amend the revenue clauses of the Articles of Confederation.

...

Madison serves in the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond before and after a trip to New York with the Marquis de Lafayette.

...

Back in the Virginia House of Delegates, Madison secures passage of revised version of the statute of religious freedom drafted by Jefferson in 1777.

...

One of the first delegates to arrive at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Madison promotes what will become known as the "Virginia Plan.
He serves as the chief architect of a proposed constitution that would provide for a strong central government.
The Convention adopts a new constitution on September 17, subject to its being ratified by a minimum of nine states.
Madison then travels to New York where he begins writing various numbers of the Federalist essays, known as "The Federalist Papers," in support of that constitution.

...

In June, as a delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention, Madison thwarts the efforts of Patrick Henry and others to have that body reject the proposed National Constitution.

...

U.S. Congressional Delegate Madison engineers the adoption of the first amendments to the new Constitution.
They are known collectively as the "Bill of Rights.
(Madison proposed 17 amendments on 09/25/1789.

Madison serves as secretary of state in President Jefferson's administration.

1809-1812
Madison's second renovation and addition project at Montpelier adds the flanking wings with kitchens below and a back colonnade; also a neoclassical temple over an ice house is constructed to the north of the house.

1809-1817
Madison serves as fourth president of the United States.
During the War of 1812, the White House is burned.

...

Madison succeeds his recently departed friend Jefferson as the rector of the University of Virginia.